This year's Great Salt Lake Scouting holiday fundraiser will run from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7, at the South Towne Exposition Center, 9575 S. State. Tickets are $50 each or $1,500 for a corporate table.

SANDY — For the past 22 years, Don Christensen and his family have spent the day after Thanksgiving buying almost everything they can get their hands on.

But the Christensen family doesn't spend Black Fridays buying Christmas presents for each other. They're buying items for the annual Great Salt Lake Council Boy Scout auction.

"We feel like it is something that helps youth and helps them to develop into good young men," said Jolene Dew, Christensen's daughter. "We feel really strongly about the auction, about Scouting, which is why, of course, we do the auction."

This year's Great Salt Lake Scouting holiday fundraiser will run from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7, at the South Towne Exposition Center, 9575 S. State. Tickets are $50 each or $1,500 for a corporate table.

Don Bean, senior development director for the Great Salt Lake Council, said this year's auction likely will raise about $150,000, with around 600 people in attendance.

"We used to make about $15,000 and thought that was really good, … but now they are making a lot more than that," said Arda Jean Christensen, Don's wife.

When Don Christensen started the auction, it was small and only items that were donated by businesses were auctioned off, he said.

"I used to go out to the lumber yards and get them to donate stuff, and then I started to go to places that were going out of business," the Millcreek resident said. "But the problem with that was they were trying to sell stuff that nobody wanted."

Don Christensen started sending his children and grandchildren to Black Friday sales and then donating those items to the auction.